"Some really fine stores out there haven't spruced up their sites since dirt was invented," they lamented. They did, however, manage to find a handful of wine sites that do online wine sales right.

I've purchased hard-to-locate bottles of wine online for a couple of special occasions, and never had a problem. Still, if I ordered wine online all the time, I'd be screwed on a couple of last-minute hostess gifts, and stuck with quite a hefty shipping bill. How about you?

I buy wines online if there is something I cannot get locally. No reason to pay for shipping if my local store sells it, but if buying online is the only way to get it, I'll order it online. Plus I prefer supporting local stores, and frequently order online from a local store and then go and pick it up.

I have a certain wine we love and I wanted to order it online because it was offered cheaper but I live in Florida and they can't ship liquor to a house. Which really stinks because I do gift baskets online at Christmas and I can never send wine then either.

nope - i've thought about it in the past but i've never done it. i have had reps send me wine before that they've gotten online - so that's kind of cool. i guess if you know EXACTLY what you want then it's pretty easy to do ...right?

We bought 2 cases of wine when we were at the Biltmore Estate during our honeymoon and ended up ordering another case of our favorites when we ran out. I don't think I'd order from a vineyard I hadn't tried, though.